22. From Mill to Mill in the Baybachtal Neumühle or Lönsmühle

Only a few wall remnants can still be seen from the Neumühle in the district of Dommershausen; it fell victim to a fire on October 23, 1979. After this mill ceased its grinding operations in the 1930s, it became known as 'Lönsmühle'. The nature lover and world traveler Georg Haack acquired the property and turned it into a memorial for the well-known poet Hermann Löns, who fell in World War I and with whom he was friends. In the 'Lönszimmer', he preserved many personal belongings of the poet, such as documents, drawings, unpublished manuscripts, and particularly valuable mementos like a family album and the guitar of the popular poet. Many passing hikers and even entire school classes visited the Lönshof, which was also interesting for another reason: Haack had brought back numerous items from his travels around the world, and a variety of animals inhabited the property, making it especially attractive to children. Even before acquiring the Neumühle, Georg Haack had established a nature reserve in the community forest of Morshausen in the 1920s, expressing his admiration for the poet, as Löns had wanted to create such a nature reserve in the Harz region. The park in Morshausen was established with great effort and support from the local population and was ceremoniously inaugurated in June 1929. However, in the following years, the park lacked maintenance, leading to its decline and being overgrown by nature. Today, the forest has reclaimed the area, and nothing remains to remind us of the 'Hermann-Löns-Park'.